Coming home

Coming home.
It was something I never expected I’d do. Ten years before; I’d ran, as fast as I could as far as I could. I did anything, went anywhere just to make sure I never came back. The place had faded from my memory and took with it the faces. Well most of them.

And yet here I was again sitting outside the village that I had once called home.
The same feeling I’d felt ten years ago welled inside me and I wanted to turn the car around and run once more but running wasn’t an option, not this time.

I reached into the inside pocket of my jacket and took out the letter. I didn’t bother to unfold it, I knew the words written there off by heart, had read them fifty times since the letter had finally managed to catch up to me. It was three months out of date by then. I jumped ship in Hong Kong as soon as I’d read it, hopped a cargo plane to Islamabad, contracted to fly a charter to Ankara then caught a ferry to Athens and then by train all the way to London where I’d rented the car and drove virtually non stop. All the time my determination had never wavered, not until now, sitting outside Cuilach with the engine running.

It was insane; when I stopped to think about it, I had dashed half-way across the world on a flimsy half forgotten memory… I was lying to myself; it wasn’t flimsy and it wasn’t half forgotten, not even a little forgotten. It had always been there in that protected little place in the back of my mind; she had always been there.

I put the letter back in my pocket and put the car in gear driving the last quarter of mile into the village. It was late, already getting dark and the truth was I didn’t have the courage to go there so I drove past the turn and headed for the pub; they used to rent rooms out; if that had changed then it would be a night in the car.
Fortunately it hadn’t changed; I recognized Charlie McGregor the owner but he didn’t recognise me, maybe it was the beard and when I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror later I contemplated shaving it off. I decided against it; I liked the anonymity it granted me. I wasn’t back for anyone else in this village, only her.

I lay back on the bed, staring at the cracked and pitted ceiling my stomach doing summersaults and the urge to run came over me again but I couldn’t do it, not again. I’d ran out on her ten years before; I wasn’t going to do it again even if she’d never know I’d done it.

There was a knock at the door and surprised I rose to answer it. It turned out I was wrong; Charlie had recognised me after all.
He’d put on about twenty pounds and lost a lot of hair but there was no mistaking him. Walter Markum; he had the same arrogant expression he’d worn back then but his eyes were tired, his face lined.
‘Charlie phoned me, told me he thought it was you.’ He said awkwardly.
I think he expected me to invite him in but I didn’t, I just stood there staring at the man that ten years ago had decided to make my life a living hell.
‘We didn’t think you’d come, Thank yo…’
‘I didn’t come back for you.’ I interrupted him. ‘Only for her.’
‘Yes, of course. Err… She doesn’t know we wrote you… Well, we didn’t want her getting upset if…’
‘You weren’t that bothered about upsetting her ten years ago.’ I had no intention of making it easy for him.
He hung his head, ‘You can’t do anything to me that I haven’t done to myself already. I’m so sorry.’
‘What are you sorry for Markum? That things didn’t work out the way you wanted or that your daughter…’ I stopped myself, ‘Why are you here?’
‘I, that is we wondered if you wanted to come over…’ It was hard for him; coming cap in hand to the ‘no good little Bastard’ and I wasn’t going to make things easy for him.
‘You mean I’m welcome in your house now?’
His face twisted and I almost felt sorry for him.
‘Do you want me to beg you; will that make you feel better? You want money, I’ll pay you anything you want, name your price. Just please...’
‘I don’t want your money!’
He pulled a hand through his thinning hair; ‘Anything, I’ll do anything…’
‘Give me five minutes.’ I pushed the door shut in his face.
I hadn’t planned it this way; I was going to wait until morning, drive by first to do a little recce…
I pulled on my jacket, breathed into my hand to make sure my breath was alright then turned to the door again but my hand never reached the door-knob. Panic welled up in me; what if she didn’t want to see me? What if..? There were a hundred ‘what ifs’ the only way to answer them was to face her. If she wanted to slap me in the face and tell me to go away she had the right; I owed her that much. Hell, I owed her a lot more than that. I opened the door.

We drove to their house in Walter’s shiny new jag even though it was only around the corner and I would’ve preferred to walk but he insisted and I couldn’t be bothered arguing with him anymore I was too busy trying not to throw up for that.
We’d promised each other that no-one would ever separate us; I’d promised to take her with me but I knew her father would never stop looking; we would’ve spent our lives running… I knew I could handle it as much as I knew she couldn’t. I didn’t even say goodbye. Because I knew I couldn’t say goodbye.

The jag drew to a halt but Walter made no move to get out. ‘She looked for you; internet searches, private investigators, missing persons agencies. She got close a few times…’ He turned to face me and there were tears in his eyes. ‘I had no idea what it would do to her.’
For the first time I think I understood Walter Markum; His daughter, his only daughter had fallen in love with a no good waster who just wanted to cruise through life having fun. If I’d been in his place I wouldn’t have done anything different from what he had. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that.
‘I won’t tell her what you did Walter.’ I said softly, ‘I won’t tell her you planted the drugs, I won’t tell her you phoned the police. I won’t tell her that because of you I’m a convicted drug dealer.’ I climbed out of the car, waiting for him to do the same.
He came around the car, ‘Constance thinks, that is to say she doesn’t know either.’
I laughed an empty humourless sound, ‘So she thinks she’s opening her door to a criminal?’
‘This isn’t about Constance or me, it’s about Lucy.’
He opened the front door and taking a deep breath I stepped into their house for the first time in ten years.
The décor was as opulent as it had been ten years before; like some kind of show house that made you feel uncomfortable just standing on the carpet let alone touching anything. Constance was standing next to the fireplace in the lounge waiting for us; where Walter had gained weight she had lost it; she was pencil thin, her hair streaked with strands of grey but she still wore the same haughty expression I remembered. She had a crystal tumbler half full of amber liquid in one hand and the look she gave me when Walter ushered me in could’ve withered stone.
‘She put the tumbler down and faced me again, ‘I want you to know that none of this is my idea. She didn’t need you then and she doesn’t need you now.’
‘Constance!’ Walter snapped.
She bit her lip and picked up the tumbler again.
I could feel the oppression in that house closing in on me, could feel Constance’s hatred and Walter’s guilt… I wanted to run, I so wanted to run.

The door opened and she walked in.

Lucy.

I don’t really know what I’d expected, on the one hand she was as beautiful then as the first day I had set eyes on her but the illness had taken its toll; she was pale and much thinner.
‘Mum where are the scissors? I’ve looked…’ She glanced up at me and my breath caught, she smiled at me then looked away and I felt like the ground had opened and swallowed me.
‘… in the kitchen… drawer…’ She stopped talking again, turned back to me; her eyes scanning every inch of my face; not sure... The magazine she’d been holding fell from her fingers as she walked over to me, I flinched; expecting the slap, the tears the shouting… She pulled my face to hers and our lips met and ten years of loneliness and regret were cleansed from my soul.
‘I knew you’d come back, I knew you’d come back to me.’ She said the words over and over, breathing them into my mouth.
‘I’m so sorry.’ I breathed back into her, tears flowed down my cheeks and I knew in that moment that I would never leave her again – never!

At some point her parents left us, we sat next to one another and she held my hand like she was afraid if she let it go I would disappear again.
We didn’t talk for a long time just sat there trying to expunge the ten years apart by sheer will alone.
‘Tell me about your life, tell me every detail, the good and the bad, I want to live it all through your words.’ She said finally.
So I told her, I told her about the three years on the Icelandic trawlers fighting fifty foot waves to make a living. I told her about the year on the oil rig off Newfoundland watching the giant icebergs dance around us. I told her about the two years in Alaska learning to do everything from cooking to flying a clapped-out DC3. Of sailing around the oceans of the world on rusty, stinking merchant vessels... She listened to each tale with relish, as though she were really living those moments with me… She smiled at me when the flow of words stopped and I felt embarrassed to be rattling on…
‘The truth is I knew most of it already.’ She confessed, still holding my hands tightly. I’ve followed you; I just never quite managed to catch up to you. I conned dad into taking me to Alaska on holiday but by the time we got to Fairbanks you’d already left just one day before. It was the same in Bahrain only I was a week late that time, two weeks in Rio…’
‘But why? After what I did...’
She reached up and touched my cheek gently. ‘Why did you leave me?’ There was no recrimination in the question.
‘I knew…’
She kissed me again. ‘You were right; my life up until we met was too sheltered, too easy I could’ve never kept up with you...’
‘I would’ve done it different if you’d been with me…’
She smiled, ‘No you wouldn’t you were too adventurous you had to get it out of your system.’ Her hand fell away from my face, ‘You didn’t tell me about the three years in prison.’ She said quietly.
I felt my cheeks burning. ‘I didn’t think… it’s not something I’m proud of.’ I finished lamely. I wanted so much to tell her that I didn’t do it but I knew it would mean that I would have to tell her the truth. She surprised me again.
‘It was dad wasn’t it?’
I remained silent; looking into those eyes I couldn’t say no, I couldn’t give her the shield of the lie; I couldn’t let her think that I was a criminal.
She smiled a sad smile, ‘I’m sorry…’
I squeezed her hand, pulling it to my lips. ‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’
‘Did they tell you about the cancer, is that..?’ The words faltered as her hands were drawn from mine and she looked away, ‘I know I don’t look the same…’
I gently turned her face back to me. ‘You are beautiful and that will never change…’
‘Please tell me that you didn’t come back out of sympathy…’
I blinked away tears of my own, ‘I came back because I realised what a fool I’ve been; I came back to fight for you like I should’ve done ten years ago. I don’t care if I have to fight your parents, the entire village… or the breast cancer. I will not loose you again.’
She collapsed against me and I held her, god how I held her.

And here I am, Constance makes it hard; she’ll never stop hating me but that’s okay. We don’t mention prison; Walter doesn’t know that Lucy knows what he did and he never will; I owe him that. If he hadn’t written that letter… Well I would’ve probably never found Lucy again. We’ve beaten her parents and now we’re going to beat the cancer, together because nothing is ever going to separate us again – ever.